Pink with turquoise windows, damp and really, really cold was Katey Korzenietz’s first impression of the house she had come to view in the East Devon village of Lympstone. That was it. She was sold. ‘I cried when I first walked in,’ she says. ‘It was just one of those moments. I just loved it.’
Proving that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Katey had fallen for a place that needed a certain someone to give it a new lease of life.
Chatterpark, an interwar-era, five-bedroom detached house, had come onto the market in 2018 for the first time in 40 years. Its prime location on the Exe Estuary in a sought-after village meant it was hot property, mainly because the unlisted building could be knocked down and started again. That’s often the way in this idyllic waterside spot near the Michelin-starred Lympstone Manor.
‘There was a lot of interest in Chatterpark - we certainly weren't the only ones to offer on the house’ says Katey, who realised she and husband Simon would have to pull out all the stops if they were going to bag this place in a village they had come to love. The couple had moved to Devon, Katey’s home county, in 2005 to raise their daughter Heidi. They had lived in Exeter and Dawlish but had always found themselves gravitating towards Lympstone. This was their chance to set up here permanently.
‘We sold cars, did everything we could to get the house,’ says Katey. ‘And I don’t know what happened, but it just seemed to be that the gods were on our side and we got it. It was fate.’
Katey and Simon were now the proud new owners of a building that needed a complete overhaul. The couple suspected it was going to be complex project, but it wasn’t until they had moved into Chatterpark that they realised just how much they’d taken on.
‘I think initially, we thought, oh, we’ll just renovate it, it’ll be fine,’ says Katey, an interior designer by trade and well used to this kind of work. ‘But once we started looking at it, I mean really looking at it, we thought, crikey…
‘So, we lived in it for a bit, then I got ill, so we moved out for a while.’
The couple realised they needed some expert help, so commissioned an architect to draft a new vision for this old property.
‘They came up with some plans to knock it down and build a new house,’ says Katey. ‘They wanted to turn the house 90 degrees so it would face the other way. We just kind of went with it. Looking back, I think we got swept along.
'But we had a nagging feeling that it wasn't the right thing to do and we thought, what are we doing? This is all wrong.
‘Deep down we knew we wanted to keep the original house, so we pulled out of planning before anything happened and said, let’s just stop. It was really quite stressful.’
Then covid hit and the couple were left wondering what to do.
‘We thought, right, we’ll put it on the market because we felt this is too big a thing, too big a project to take on,’ says Katey, skimming over what sounds like a thoroughly stressful time.
It took a well-timed intervention from their then 11-year-old daughter Heidi one sunny day back in 2020 to convince Katey and Simon that Chatterpark was actually their forever house.
‘Heidi was sat down having a picnic in the garden and looking back at the house,’ says Katey. ‘She just said to us, ‘You can’t sell it. This is our family home’. That was it. I said, right, we’ll take it off the market. Let’s do this.’
Despite this setback, Katey and Simon were reenergised by the courage of their convictions and soon got to work on their original plan to improve what Chatterpark already had.
During a year-long refurb, the whole house was stripped back to its bare bones. Everything came out and the roof came off. Internal walls were taken down, the house was rewired, replumbed and - the most exciting part - a contemporary extension was added. This architect-designed section was created to work with Chatterpark’s outline while providing a refreshing, modern contrast to the original building.
It sounds as though it all came together nicely.
‘Because I do interiors and I’ve seen how projects work, I knew it was all going to be ok,’ says Katey. ‘But I think my husband was a bit like a rabbit in the headlights at times. He was like, what the actual (bleep) are we doing?!’
Anyone who’s been through anything like this will relate to Simon’s sentiments, especially when you factor in a caravan stint.
‘We were living in a house in Exmouth during most of the work but we did spend six weeks in a caravan on site with our daughter,’ says Katey. ‘She really was not happy about it, but it was an adventure.’
And kind of her idea, I point out (sorry Heidi).
‘Yes! You’re right!’ says Katey. ‘I’d forgotten that. She said we should keep the house!’
It took gut instincts and hard graft to get Chatterpark to a level where it could be lived in. Then it was time for Katey to do her thing. At this point it’s worth saying that this place looks sensational. I’ve been to a few amazing houses in my time and just when you think you’ve seen the best you’re ever likely to see, another one comes along.
‘I wanted a modern look with a bit of traditional as well,’ says Katey, describing the perfectly pitched interior style. There’s enough wow (the stylish wallpaper designs, the dark green painted ceiling in the living room and splashes of yellow upstairs) to keep the look fresh but all the important stuff (the dark wooden floors by Beach Bros in Exeter, the sleek kitchen, the wood panelled boot room) is deliberately timeless and designed to last.
‘Having things like wood and brass that ages nicely the more you touch it was important,’ says Katey, leading me through beautiful room after beautiful room. I stop using adjectives in the end and just rely on gasps of joy. ‘I’ve still been putting pictures on the wall and I put a final pair of curtains in a couple of weeks ago,’ Katey continues. ‘It takes time to do all of the finishing touches.’
She deliberately leaves the best bit until the end – a living space accessed through a secret door that takes you to a mezzanine level that overlooks the estuary. It’s a timely pit-stop and a reminder that the outside here is just as important as the inside.
‘I just feel so lucky,’ says Katey, talking about the house, the garden and the location. ‘We’ve worked really, really hard to get this – it’s been a real team effort. And we really appreciate the hard work that the builders and all of the tradesmen put in. They were fantastic.’
Katey, currently doing a degree in counselling and psychotherapy, says this is it for her and her family, including Labrador Winnie and cat Bobbie. It’s taken five years but they’re happy, settled and enjoying life in a house that was meant to be theirs.
‘As a family home, it’s wonderful,’ says Katey. ‘We never take it for granted.’
